by Sebastian Hager
Iwas proud to serve as Austria’s remembrance volunteer (Gedenkdiener) in 2013-2014. Based in Vilnius in the Green House, the country’s only serious Holocaust exhibit, I was able to travel extensively and meet Lithuanian citizens from a wide variety of backgrounds. Despite all the hype, the Jewish heritage is not really in the best of shape. There is a lot of ignorance combined with an ethnocentric nationalist worldview.
One of the worst culprits is: misinformation. When visiting schools as part of my mission, I was very often shocked by pupils’ statements. I often heard exclamations like “What? My town was half Jewish before 1941?” Something was wrong in the education these youngsters had received.